Jammer's Review

Star Trek: Enterprise

"E^2"

"I didn't come over here for a debate. I've already given the order." — Archer, in the usual we-have-no-time mode

In brief: Some good ideas in the midst of a derivative time-travel outing that ultimately can't transcend itself.

Multiple choice question: "E2" is a variation of which episode?

(A) DS9's "Children of Time"
(B) TNG's "Yesterday's Enterprise"
(C) TOS's "City on the Edge of Forever"
(D) Voyager's "Timeless"
(E) Two or three of the above
(F) All of the above
(G) Help! All time-travel stories look alike!

At this point in my Star Trek-viewing stage in life, I'm tempted to pick choice (G). While it's true that all the episodes on that list are memorable shows, I just can't do it anymore. I am about time-traveled out.

"E2" is an acceptable but all-too-familiar time-travel concept that writer Mike Sussman has woven reasonably well into the Xindi story arc. It has its moments, but it also has its share of tiresome action and derivative would-be revelations. In the end, it comes down to the fact that I have seen this story too many times over the years. It's old wine in a new bottle. Or maybe just the label on the bottle has been changed.

This episode also does not have the power of those aforementioned shows. The choice to be made in the end is not as demanding of our characters. And given the terrific past three installments of Enterprise, this is a step down. The previous three installments did not feel routine. This one did.

There's a lot here that's inspired by "Children of Time," which was a far superior episode because it was about our characters — astonishingly and agonizingly — choosing one destiny over another, and sacrificing a great deal in coming to that decision. (Only a brilliant last-minute twist, in the form of a character-based veto, spared them from that choice.) "E2," by contrast, is a more mechanically implemented storyline, because it involves choosing the best way to prevent, of course, the Destruction of Earth [TM]. It's less about sacrifice and more about playing the best odds.

The familiar story involves the Enterprise crew coming face-to-face with their own descendants, who helm a future version of the Enterprise (which I'll henceforth call the Enterprise-2 for sake of simplicity). The Enterprise is just about to travel through the subspace corridor to make their rendezvous with Degra when they are contacted by the Enterprise-2, whose captain tells them that traveling through the corridor will cause an accident that will send the Enterprise back in time 117 years. (In a nice touch, the Enterprise crew at first thinks that perhaps this other Starfleet vessel could be the NX-02, which we learn is named the Columbia.)

The captain of the Enterprise-2, a half-Vulcan named Lorian (David Andrews), explains the history of the Enterprise-2, which is the would-be destiny of the Enterprise. Stranded in the past, the ship would become a generational starship wandering the expanse for the next century, having cut itself off from contact with Earth, lest they contaminate the timeline and possibly prevent First Contact with the Vulcans from ever happening (which, by the way, is exactly the premise of Star Trek: First Contact). The mission was then passed down to the children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren: Stop the future Xindi attack(s) from ever happening. When they fail to stop the initial attack that kills 7 million, they must then prevent Archer's crew from becoming trapped in the past.

Confused? It's actually pretty straightforward and by-the-book as these things go, including, naturally, the built-in time paradox, which is all but mandatory. Certainly, this holds more water in a story sense than most of the arbitrary Temporal Cold War and the shenanigans of Crewman Daniels.

There are good things to be found in "E2." There's an inherently intriguing notion in the concept of a "generational starship" that must become a community unto itself, making alliances and recruiting crew members from other worlds. (Indeed, this is what one might've thought — wrongly — that Voyager would be all about.) And there's a certain appeal in seeing characters' reactions to personal details revealed about the future.

For instance, T'Pol learns — in a conversation with her much older self, no less — that she will have to forever cope with the emotions her Trellium-D experiment has unleashed, and that Trip will become an invaluable part of her life in that process. Meanwhile, Reed learns that he's doomed to a fate of permanent bachelorhood — a future he immediately begins trying to rectify upon learning about it.

Still, a lot of this doesn't carry as much weight as it probably should've. The scenes involving Old T'Pol are pivotal, but unfortunately they are not particularly convincing; Blalock speaks too deliberately and does not capture the essence of a real character. (It's more like a parody of an old person.) And scenes of the crew discussing their futures seem too inconsequential, as if it were every day that you meet your descendants and find out how your life is (maybe) going to turn out. In a conversation between Travis and Hoshi, the deep conversation du jour is, "How about you? Did you get married?" (Would you really want to know?)

That question also surrounds Trip and T'Pol, who at the beginning of the episode are playing a low-key pursuit/rebuff game (he pursues, she rebuffs), providing the inevitable fallout from having had "sexual relations," as T'Pol so dryly puts it. The resulting banter is predictable. Later there's the (unsurprising) revelation that Lorian is the child of T'Pol and Trip, which forms the basis for some introspective dialog.

But the Enterprise-2 never really becomes a community that I felt for — certainly not like the community in "Children of Time." This is mainly because of the mixed blessing of tying all this in with the Xindi arc. It's a concept that fits in well with the single-minded focus of this season, but suffers in part because of that focus. The Enterprise-2 looks not much like a generational community that has evolved for 117 years but like yet another of this season's points on which the fate of Planet Earth pivots. The story, by its nature, is too invested in the Xindi to care much about the people or lifestyles of the Enterprise-2.

The episode basically boils down to Lorian's dilemma and his resulting choices. You see, he had a chance to stop the initial Xindi weapon with a suicide run, but he hesitated for the briefest moment and missed his opportunity; 7 million on Earth died as a result. Lorian has agonized over this tactical error for months now, and is even more determined to make sure the mission to stop the second weapon is accomplished. What he fails to consider, however, is that stopping that first weapon would probably have only delayed an inevitable strike. (Indeed, without the initial attack, Earth might not have had a warning at all — which of course begs that silly question again: Why did the Xindi send that "test" weapon in the first place? All it really accomplished was prompting the Enterprise's mission to stop them.)

Lorian's plan is to help the Enterprise make modifications that will prevent the time-shift from happening (I won't bother with the technobabble). But Lorian hides crucial facts about the odds of success, and Archer and Lorian find themselves in a heated disagreement, which ends with another example of Archer invoking his this-isn't-a-debate decree. (I'm tempted to ask: Whether he agrees or not, what's wrong with a discussion?) Old T'Pol has an alternate plan, but Lorian doesn't think it will work, and instead decides to steal equipment from the Enterprise to install on the Enterprise-2 so he can make the rendezvous with Degra himself.

Lorian's reasoning ("Billions of lives are at stake") contains an interesting irony, because it follows the same logic as the decision Archer made in stealing the warp coil from the innocent aliens in "Damage." This is an irony, alas, that seems lost on Archer, who is made out here as having the right answers. It might've been more interesting if he had the wrong answers. What we get here, while decent, is not challenging. Lorian's internal struggle to do what's best is commendable, but I really could've done without the tired sequence where the two Enterprises open fire on each other.

Similarly, the solution we ultimately arrive at — both Enterprises working together to travel through the subspace corridor, with the Enterprise-2 fending off attacking aliens — brings us to an action climax that strikes me as too routine and pat for this material. That we never find out exactly what happens to the Enterprise-2 in the midst of this chaos is probably a good thing, and allows the time paradox to resolve itself with a minimum of complications. But on the scale of time-travel shows, this can only emerge as average fare. It does not have the troubling questions of a classic Trek time-travel episode.

Perhaps the Xindi angle is simply too mechanical here to fully support a premise that demands more human feelings. To put it another way, it would probably be more interesting to meet your great-grandchildren if they weren't in such a hurry to go into battle alongside you.

32 comments on this review

The answer to your multiple choice question is (A). This episode is a
poorer version of DS9's Children of Time.

What annoyed me about this episode was that nobody, except Captain Archer
at the end, mentioned that if the Enterprise isn't thrown back in time,
there's no Enterprise-2. In Children of Time, this essential detail was
referred to repeatedly.

How can the Enterprise-2 fire upon the Enterprise? If the former destroys
the latter, then the former will never have existed (temporal paradox
headache time!).

As for T'Pol's question about the fate of the Enterprise-2, the answer is
that it was in a "superposition of states" (like the colony in Children of
Time). In other words, it existed and didn't exist simultaneously. That's
why she and Archer remember the Enterprise-2, even though its history had
been erased from the timeline.

I enjoyed this one slightly more than it seems everyone else did. I didn't
enjoy it quite enough to bump it up to three stars. But, if I could, I'd go
two and three quarters stars on this.

I kind of like that Archer married an alien. It softened his character a
little bit for me in a casual kind of way. Or at the very least, it gave me
hope that one day he won't just be a bumbling idiot in space. That he could
actually be sensitive and competent enough to get an alien to love him one
day is somewhat reassuring.

I also thought it was interesting that Reed dies a bachelor. Maybe knowing
that will help him be more open with the crew and lead to some good
character development? I'm cautious to get my hopes up there. The last few
episodes of Enterprise have been quite good. But, considering the two and a
half seasons of banal garbage that came before that, I'm still not holding
my breath for future plot point pay offs with this series.

Here's an idea: instead of waiting 100 years to actually try and destroy
the Xindi probe, why didn't Lorian & the Enterprise-2 establish first
contact with the Xindi. Make peaceful relations... earn their trust... form
an alliance? Avoid the necessity of a Xindi superweapon altogether?

I knew it couldn't last. In terms of greatness, I guess three consecutive
episodes is the maximum we could ever expect from Enterprise. Leave it to a
re-hashed time-travel storyline to break a good streak and bring us back to
facepalming mediocrity.

Forget about "contaminating the timeline". What I really wish is for
someone to back into the past to 2001, prevent this shambles of a series
from ever being produced. The world would have been spared the aberration;
Trek fans would still have their self-respect.

I was actually thinking about this the other day...when thinking about
another Enterprise episode. What if, when you travel back in time, you're
actually travelling to a parallel universe? In Micheal Chrighton's
Timeline, one character explains that there were many paralell universes,
and that they didn't really differ all that much in the events that
happened, not enough for you to notice anyway. For some reason, some of
them are offset in time from one another. Say, you find one that's 117
offset from your own. Also, time is passing in both timelines at the same
time... meaning if you spent 3 days in the past and come back, 3 days have
actually passed for the people back home too. More importantly, you can
make all kinds of changes but none of it affects you or your timeline. It
solves so many paradoxes. That model isn't very satisfying for the
time-traveller; he ends up doing someone else a favour, but everyone else
he left back home is still screwed. So what if it DOES affect his timeline?
Just...the effects aren't felt until he goes back to his own (or maybe like
Daniel said, it takes time for changes in the timeline to affect things -
which suddenly makes sense now!). His own world is all changed once he gets
back. He would probably meet a double that never time travelled, and a
group of friends that don't remember ever having sent him to the past. The
timeline that he's from is "dead", but he still exists.

Marco said: "Here's an idea: instead of waiting 100 years to actually try
and destroy the Xindi probe, why didn't Lorian & the Enterprise-2
establish first contact with the Xindi. Make peaceful relations... earn
their trust... form an alliance? Avoid the necessity of a Xindi superweapon
altogether?"

Thanks for ruining this episode for me with such a spectacular plot-hole
Marco! :P

I agree to an extent, but they're back in the year 2036, a time when Earth
has yet to make First Contact with Vulcans. For the Enterprise to undertake
the peace mission you suggest, they would have to do it on Earth's behalf
(I don't see how they could negotiate with the Xindi while saying that our
home planet can't be made aware of this - it's too convoluted and not
exactly a trusting foundation on which to work), which would require the
Enterprise to introduce itself to 2036 Earth, at the very least to prepare
them. Who's to say that the Xindi, upon being told of the future they
endure at Earth's hands a century later, won;t just decide to attack Earth
in the here and now of this episode in 2036?

You make a good point Jay. Also, there's the problem of possibly tipping
your hand to the sphere builders. Who knows how long ago they were first
talking to the Xindi?

Still, the premise of the episode requires for them to fail at stopping the
first probe that attacked earth. I just don't believe that they would fail.
If it were me, I would prepare a time-capsule in space that would transmit
a message telling them about this threat say... a few decades after the
first warp signature is detected around Earth. (Just in case something
happens to our ship in the interim) To hell with any worries about
"contaminating the timeline"; that's just nonsense. You're already
"contaminating" it by trying to stop the probe. They didn't seem too
worried about causing paradoxes when they contacted the old Enterprise. The
only reason I'd wait at all to tell them would be that they'd be more
likely to believe us so many years later. Then, I'd go and tell them again
in person, and have Enterprise get recalled back to Earth well before the
probe attacked. Then we'd have 2 Enterprises, plus a bunch of other ships
to destroy it. Maybe they wouldn't take us seriously, but I think they
would with all that evidence Enterprise has in its cargo hold. Heck, just
ask them to quantum date something.

Poor Reed. (I sometimes think I have the same fate, and commenting on
every review on a Star Trek site doesn't do much to deny that, heh)

It wasn't spectacular, but not worth too much of a slagging IMO. Given the
description from the preview in the review for the previous episode, I was
expecting an episode of "action against hard headed aliens" yawn fest, so
this was a pleasant surprise.

I found that DeLorian guy quite a believable seeming half Vulcan, and think
he would've made an interesting alternative if T'Pol hadn't been around.
Keiko O'Brien as an officer worked surprisingly well too.

Even without any "Prime Directives" (temporal or not) and non-contamination
rules and whatever else from 'future' Treks, I did find it a bit odd that
they'd willingly just go around learning what happened to themselves.
Don't think I could do that!

I would have though the first thing they should have done was fly to Vulcan
and give them a heads up. At least they seemed disciplined enough to
handle future information without blowing up the universe.

2. By going into the past, they implicitly create and now exist in
multiverse branch "beta", which is largely the same as "alpha" but now has
Enterprise #2 running around a hundred years too early.

3. When Enterprise #1 meets them, all of their interactions have no effect
on the history of Enterprise #2, because it came from "alpha", and we're
busy altering "beta".

4. When Enterprise #1 goes through the rift the proper way, no time travel
is involved, so we're still in "beta". They still remember everything that
happened.

5. Going through properly hasn't eliminated Enterprise #2, because that
would only happen if the "alpha" Enterprise had gone through correctly
instead.

Incidentally, given that the reptilians think there's more than one human
ship running around, we can assume that the TV series has been following a
variant of universe "beta", in which Enterprise #2 is running around and
being occasionally spotted.

Some Trek episodes have treated time travel differently. For example, when
the Enterprise C showed up in TNG, suddenly their absence in the past has
created significant issues in the present. But that can easily be
explained by just saying that the show jumps universes at the moment they
show up. Reusing my previous terminology:

2. "Beta" = universe where Ent-C travelled into the future, and everything
was messed up.

3. "Gamma" = universe where Ent-C vanished, but came back, and things were
(mostly) back to normal.

The show jumps from "alpha" to "beta" when the Ent-C shows up, and jumps
from "beta" to "gamma" when Ent-C goes back in time again (with Tasha
Yar).

Another proof would be in "Cause and Effect" (TNG), where a huge number of
multiverse branches are created. The proof is that Data received data from
previous multiverses to avert the disaster that created the loop in the
first place. This would be impossible if you subscribed to the "single
universe" theory.

However, the multiverse theory also lends itself to some unsettling
conclusions. Mainly:

You can never truly "alter the past". You can perform Action X in the past
and create a new multiverse branch, and there will be an infinite number of
future multiverses where Action X occurred, but there will still be a
(larger) infinite number of multiverses where Action X didn't occur,
including the one you came from when you time travelled. (Yes, there are
different sizes of infinity; ask a math expert.)

Does that mean it's not worth doing? Well, maybe. For example, although
there's a multiverse branch in which the Xindi blew up Earth, there are
still infinite other multiverse branches in which they didn't. Humanity
will live on *in other multiverse branches*, even if you don't lift a
finger to stop the Xindi. But if you do successfully stop them, you create
more multiverse branches in which Earth survived.

Perhaps more importantly, by completing your mission and preventing the
destruction of the Earth, you get to live on in the branch where Earth was
saved, instead of the one where Earth is gone. But that's tempered by the
knowledge that there are countless other multiverse branches where you
failed in your mission and had to live on without Earth. You're just
leaving those behind by succeeding.

Pretty much every supposed time paradox can be explained by the multiverse
in some fashion. The ones where the timeline seems to be consistent -- you
go back, change something, and it turns out it had always been that way --
are just timelines akin to "gamma" above, where the past change occurred
*and* the attempt to change the past occurred.

Obviously, Trek tends to ignore the details here and just "make it so" by
following whatever timeline the viewer expects to be seeing. However, that
tends to lead to some rather illogical decisions. For example:

Why attempt the "warp 6.9" approach before attempting the "go through with
fixed impulse" approach? If they end up going back into the past again,
you'll just end creating a cycle, and the Enterprise #2 will be able to
tell the Enterprise #1 "yeah, we tried the impulse thing, it didn't work".

Another alternative would be to deliberately attempt to go back in time
again. In some multiverses, you'd just be creating a loop, but there
should be other multiverses where you now have both Enterprise #1 *and*
Enterprise #2 appearing in the past 100 years prior. Or you could send
both ships through and double your fun. Then send four ships through and
get eight. And you could keep doing that over and over until you have a
whole fleet.

Really, this is the biggest issue with time travel, regardless of whether
you use a multiverse or a single universe theory: Most time travel
mechanisms theoretically allow you to create infinite clones of yourself --
at least until you've run out of places to put them. Oops.

TL;DR: Trek is a multiverse, and anything is possible, but time travel can
get very complicated in a multiverse and probably should be avoided.

I think this episode is much worse than 2.5 stars. It is essentially
pointless drivel. While there are a few okay scenes, I just can't help but
conclude that this episode utterly destroys the tempo set by the previous 3
episodes.

Lorian's betrayal was also predictable, and it didn't feel much different
than other 'take over the ship' kind of episodes. But moreover, it just
didn't feel right to me at all. I didn't want to watch it as it unfolded. I
wish it had never happened. It was just stupid and nonsensical.

The time-travel bits of this episode just don't make sense. I find it hard
to believe so much of it. Why didn't we see Enterprise-2 attempt to stop
the probe at all? Are we to believe the audience only saw the first
incarnation of this event, but the second was had off-screen?

Moreover though, why wasn't the timeline polluted at all with Enterprise-2
roaming around in the expanse for 100 years? One has to think this would
change an awful lot, especially how races interact with Enterprise in the
normal time period. The Xindi would have surely learned of them as well.

Lastly, Time Travel episodes seem to utilize different logic to suite the
demands for the story. In this case, the Enterprise-2 ceases to exist once
an event is changed, but in other shows, the entities that belong to other
time periods continue to exist. Which is it?

In the end, one could easily skip this episode and basically miss nothing.
It's entirely forgettable.

It's hard to believe they would stay on the ship for over 100 years. This
is supposed to be a ship more primitive than Kirk's Enterprise. I'm
surprised they didn't leave the ship and approach the problem from some
other angle. They could have gone to Earth and warned people about the
attack. They could have parked the ship somewhere and tried to become part
of some other civilization they encountered. They chose to live most of
their lives in a vehicle the size of a college dorm building waiting their
whole life to stop a single attack? It seems a single message sent back
through time a few days could have stopped the attack. A whole ship sent
back should have solved the problem. The crew's children could have
transmitted all their details to the government and military and then gone
about their lives.

Amazing that in 2004 on Star Trek is was still too controversial to
suggest that ANY of the (2/3 male) crew might be gay and not need to pair
off like Noah's Arc.

I didn't think Old T'Pol was so badly performed--at least, not any worse
than Young T'Pol.

In a series that managed by this point to surpass DS9 in terms of making me
not care about any of the main characters, just about the only thing to
look forward to was the advancement of the serial plot.

In spite of the unnecessary syrup scene and religious rubbish in "Children
of Time," one of the aspects of that episode which made it far superior was
the use of Yedrin (trans-seriesed here as Lorian). In spite of the conflict
between him and the Defiant crew, he never became a villain (ironically,
like Archer became in "Damage").

It just goes to show in the end that all those excuses people give to
justify the position that DS9 is the best incarnation of Trek--it's dark,
it's serialised, it's gritty, it's non-Roddenberry, etc.--are all nonsense.
Indeed, DS9 was a superior series to Enterprise, but as Season 3
emblemises, ENT was darker, more serialised and grittier than DS9 ever was,
but never became a better show.

Anyway, for this episode, 3 stars is probably about right considering the
series as a whole.

"It just goes to show in the end that all those excuses people give to
justify the position that DS9 is the best incarnation of Trek--it's dark,
it's serialised, it's gritty, it's non-Roddenberry, etc.--are all nonsense.
Indeed, DS9 was a superior series to Enterprise, but as Season 3
emblemises, ENT was darker, more serialised and grittier than DS9 ever was,
but never became a better show."

Call me crazy, but I think the part you're leaving out is all that DONE
WELL that we think that makes Ds9 the best Star Trek series. But episodic
and serial television can both be bad, as Voyager and Enterprise
respectively show.

(Sorry for the all caps, but there doesn't seem to be any way of doing
italics in this posting system.)

I am watching Enterprise episode by episode on startrek.com and didn't
notice that E2 is missing. I mean both that I didn't notice that the
episode is missing from the View All page AND that it was missing from the
story arc. It is truly a completely throw-away episode. I am almost sorry I
went back to watch it.

The "old T'Pol" is terrible - overdone, unconvincing makeup and overdone,
unconvincing performance. They should have gone less all-out on the fake
wrinkles and gotten Blalock to give a more naturalistic performance, truer
to young T'Pol.

Did anyone notice that this is the third episode in the season dealing with
a boarding party raiding another ship for parts or supplies? And Lorian's
choice to raid Enterprise prime's injectors mirror's Archer's choice to
raid the other ship for their warp coil.

I liked this episode a lot. Time travel stories always require even more
suspension of disblief than other stories. I thought this was a good one,
but I'm a big fan of time travel and parallel universes.

With two exceptions:

Old T'Pol was terrible (at least I thought so) and I'm getting really tired
of Acher's unkempt, grim, unshaven look. Next episode should be "Archer
takes a shower - Finally". I understand he carries the weight of the world,
the fate of the earth on his shoulders... but everyone else still manages
to look somehow civilized.

@Elliott: Actually, I couldn’t help but think that since Lt. Reed started
out selling Vidal Sassoon products from his “sall-on” that he was
probably as gay as a Christmas tree.* He certainly acts like an uptight
queen in his hissy-fits with the MACOs. *cough*

Enjoyable outing for me. I got a kick out of Lorian stealing from Archer
the same way he stole from those other aliens (which still has me seeing
red -- what an unethical drip Archer can be.)

Lorian's casting was spot on. He looked enough like Trip to be believably
blood related -- must have been an interesting casting notice -- "actor who
looks older than Connor Trinneer needed to play his son." I got a kick out
of him being Trip and T'Pol's son (saw it coming, since he looks a lot like
Trip and has the ears). T'Pol getting advice from her future self was
interesting -- more fodder for T'Pol to deal with as she struggles with her
feelings for our engineer...

I have to say, I always question these episodes where someone from the
future tries to correct things in the past to how they should be. These
people only exist in the future, so the idea that someone would willingly
snuff out their existence is a little hard to take. Then again, at least
the excuse was decent -- trying to save Earth. Still, most of these new
Enterprisians have never even seen Earth, so why do they have such an
intense desire to sacrifice themselves to save it?

I agree that old T'Pol should have been played by a legitimately old
actress. They cast young adults to play the characters, so why rely on
hideous old-age make-up?

Marco, Eric, and wisq above pretty much cover the thoughts I've had on the
writing here. I really like Trek time-travel and warped-reality stories
whrn they're done well. This one doesn't hang together.

I think my favorite bit was actually T'Pol's horror upon being told she'd
have to live with emotions. Blaylock conveys it well with just her eyes and
some small movements.

I agree with Neall...the makeup odf T'Pol was absurdly overdone. T'Pol is
in her 60s during the run of Enterprise, so here she'd be 180 give or take.
We saw Sarek at 203 and he looked nowhere near as haggard and aged as they
made T'Pol look here.

I think you're too hard on Jolene Blalock--I liked her performance here, in
both roles (though I agree they went too far with the old age makeup--but
then, at least she didn't look as monstrous as Picard did in "Inner
Light"--how old was he supposed to be a thousand?) And the more I attempt
to watch Enterprise and wring some enjoyment out of what was an essentially
misguided and ultimately disappointing series, the more I've come to
appreciate Jolene, and to realize that she has been my favorite part of it.
Enterprise was blessed in that it had no overtly annoying characters,
unlike all the other modern Treks (no Wesley, no Rom, no Jake, no Neelix,
no Harry Kim.) It's too bad such a solid cast was so badly served by their
writers, but I thought at the time I first watched the show, and I think
even moreso now that I'm rewatching it years later, that Jolene was my
favorite of that cast, and the heart and soul of that series.